Tong Family

Well, in prepping for Calvin’s party, learned some fascinating (at least to me!) things about the Olympic theme songs:

# “Answers.com”:http://www.answers.com/topic/olympic-symbols. The song we most closely associate with the Olympics has nothing to do with the official Olympics. It is actually written by Leo Arnaud and is called “Bugler’s Dream”. Someone at ABC heard it and liked so they used it in 1968. When NBC picked up the rights, it was so tied to the Olympics that they licensed it starting in 1992.
# “Chiffboard”:http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=256070 reminds us that most people think that John Williams wrote it because in the 1984 Olympics, he incorporated the piece into something called the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” so that’s what most people here, but it really comes from Arnaud.
* “DClarion”:http://dclarion.livejournal.com/2006/02/13/ did a strawpole and most folks like the Bugler’s Dream better, so sometime the olds beats the new 🙂
* “Mediaconcerto”:http://www.mediaconcerto.com/olympic/trivia/anthem_t.php points out that there is actually an official Olympic theme song called Ancient Immortal Spirit which is actually a greek poem by Palamas set to music.

As a nerdy aside, “MusicClassical”:http://members.tripod.com/~musiclassical/media.html keeps track of famous pieces that are used in contemporary songs and so forth like Arnoud’s piece or one of my favorites, Donizettis’s Regana va nel silenzio from “Lucia di Lammermoor” that was used in the Diva scene of the Fifth Element.